Mutiny on the Omaha

By Don Holman

Approximately 7 generations after their futuristic minded multi-billionaire founder established the scientific colony in the El-Dora star cluster, the closely integrated technical association had begun to fragment. A subgroup, unsanctioned, implemented their theory of human behavior in a group of colony w

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Holman Author
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960093356

Don Holman

Born in Alberta, Canada, Don always worked. His driver's license earned him the job of milking the family cow. His schooling, hampered by dyslexia undiagnosed until decades later, enhanced his problem solving skills, his interest in technologies and his voracious reading. With experience as an Engineer, a pilot's license, scuba certification and years in the military he went to graduate school and married. Five months later his wife suffered serious hidden injuries in an accident, never to work again, preventing completion of his PhD. Don's writing, started at age 13 stagnated until word processors were common. After 41 years of declining health his wife suffered a stroke and moved to a home. Don's writing; passion, recreation and therapy - now a seven novel epic, went to a publishing house. The novels, fresh and understandable let us live through the uncertainties and decisions of the heroes as they mature in a challenging background of unique and challenging worlds. Don a self-proclaimed generalist, knowledgeable about and able to recognize and solve problems, says his stories are meant to be interesting, fun and help the reader understand how science influences all our futures.

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Copyright © 2023 by Don Holman.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without a prior written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by the copyright law.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911894

ISBN: 978-1-960093-34-9 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-960093-55-4 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-960093-35-6 (E-book)

Some characters and events in this book are fictitious and products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Chapter 1: Missing

Chapter 2: A Recruit and a Mentor

Chapter 3: Canus

Chapter 4: RS(7)

Chapter 5: Candidates

Chapter 6: Intruders

Chapter 7: Dream of a Snow Fight

Chapter 8: Harmony

Chapter 9: Asteroid Base

Chapter 10: Chain of Command

Chapter 11: Attack

Chapter 12: Tech Work and How They Did It

Chapter 13: The Crossing

Chapter 14: Back to School

Chapter 15: Drills and Disaster

Chapter 16: Officers Training

Chapter 17: Transfer!

Chapter 18: Sabotage

Chapter 19: Building a Case

Chapter 20: New Duties - New Opportunity

Chapter 21: Danger, Death and Data

Chapter 22: Events and Counters

Chapter 23: Confrontation

Chapter 24: Final Preperations

Chapter 25: Mutiny

Chapter 26: Defense and Offense

Chapter 27: Final Battle

Glossary

Chapter 1

Missing

My name is William K. Middleton III. I was on my knees on the front lawn next to the house when the messenger whined up on his super capacitance scooter. The uniformed messenger, a cocky 18-year-old, eyed me, a skinny teenager feeding a pair of big guard geese off my hands.

The messenger had probably been attacked by such birds and obviously wanted nothing to do with mine!

Not stepping off the scooter the messenger activated his helmet display, then studied his screen, looking at me several times. Then he called out.

You William Middleton, mother Nancy?

I nodded uncertainly.

William Middleton, delivery for you!

I kept my hands still while the geese cleaned my palms. One never teased fighting geese by withdrawing food from them, even as old a pair as these.

Dismounting his scooter, the messenger’s poise slipped a little as he took a step forward then abruptly reversed when the heads of the geese came up and they started toward him. His face turned almost white, and he stood ramrod stiff. He almost looked like a terrified young boy.

I dusted my empty hands and rose to my feet. I walked slowly toward the messenger, the geese waddling quickly along, one to each side. I stopped short of where the electronic fence that kept the geese in the yard was buried and wondered what the courier wanted. There had been lots of bill collectors around over the past few months, despite the bankruptcy filing.

The courier launched into his speech. It was set by law, but he didn’t just rattle it off. He had apparently just finished memorizing it and still had to say it relatively slowly and think about what he was saying to get it right.

It was an official and legal delivery and I nodded uncertainly that I would sign for it, though surely something so important should be signed for by my mother.

The messenger, however, just wanted a signature, and started forward to present the signature pad and again backpedaled as the geese lowered their heads and started to spread their wings.

I quieted my defenders. They had been well worth the computer I had traded for them. They kept the bill collectors away better than a watch dog and were much quieter. They even helped keep the lawn trimmed.

I stepped past the electronic barrier to the sidewalk. The courier was shifting his weight impatiently from foot to foot. He probably was afraid he wouldn’t earn his daily bonus.

I signed.

The delivery boy snatched the signature board from my hand, shoved the cartridge in its place, jumped on the scooter, and squealed off.

The whine of the motor receded as it sped away.

I looked at the data cartridge as I walked slowly to the house. It was a post-modern, two-story house that looked similar to a thousand others in the subdivision.

Once inside I studied the four crests, customs, space exploration service – no they had just renamed it the Space Security Service, the planetary police service, and the Justice Department - Courts Division, Bankruptcy Branch.

Should I wait to look at it...till mother comes home...

No, better to know ahead.

I put it in the slot of the Communications Corner, an older multipurpose model that could display or read prerecorded cartridges as well as record written, verbal and video messages or conversations, and of course calls. I perched on the stool and read it.

The cartridge contained 162 frames. The first eight were addresses and directions. I counted twenty-two addresses, claimants, insurance companies and government agencies.

After the addresses came the Summary.

I skimmed it. I was good at that or I couldn’t have read at least ten books and still spend hours working on computers every week.

My father William K Middleton Jr., owner of Middle Research Ltd. a qualified pilot had filed a flight plan for the company owned yacht Nancy, Albert Gustov listed as Engineer. Origin of flight Planet Summer; destination The Summer Far Space Range. Purpose Calibration of Drive. Estimated trip time with immediate return: 16 weeks. Time since departure: 48 weeks. The Nancy carried 32 weeks of provisions and lacked fuel for an extended voyage and was 32 weeks overdue.

The Nancy, originally mail ship XBR223, converted to do research was to make a simple hop into stressed space to the Summer Far Space Range, a region of space exceptionally free of particles and dust and away from commercial routes where special beacons were maintained by the Government of the Planet Summer to aid ships in the calibration of their stressed space generators. After the calibration run the ship was to have exited stressed space, signaled the range beacons and returned to Summer. The Nancy had been spoken by 3 vessels while accelerating out. Excerpts from those ships’ logs were presented. The Nancy had signaled her intention to go stressed outbound near outer beacon #231

I had to go back and reread the words go stressed, being so used to the shorthand form, pronounced Gost, but usually spelled Ghost.

The records of the Summer Near Space Test Range were referenced. No transit of, breakout by or signal from the Nancy or any similar vessel had been recorded in the twenty-four weeks after the Nancy had ghost. That meant, for a ship equipped as was the Nancy, she was unlikely to have broken out within five light weeks of the beacons.

I knew, however, the range beacons had difficulty detecting well-tuned drives of much bigger ships so the Nancy could have transited the range without having been detected.

Following the summary were data sheets with pictures of father and Gustov. Then there was a seemingly endless listing of the bills owed by Middle Research Ltd for the conversion of the Yacht.

Toward the end there was a list of items to be seized to pay debts. It included the workshop at the spaceport and all company owned vehicles, equipment, furnishings, patents and residuals and the house at 2426 Seraphim Lane, all assets owned by William J Middleton Jr., Albert Gustov and all accounts and collateral jointly owned by William Middleton Jr. and Nancy Middleton. The only thing they didn’t take was the pension father had earned at the University, and that wouldn’t help until mother reached at least 50, if by then father had been declared legally dead.

After I finished reading the summary I decided the two most important things were not even mentioned. The purpose of the research and that eight weeks after Father had ghost, war had been declared by the Federation of United Planets, meaning Earth and most of the older colony worlds, against the Confederacy of Independent Worlds, usually referred to as The Combine and consisting of many of the younger colony worlds, especially worlds run by inter-stellar corporations located more toward the center of the Sagittarius Arm, for Unprovoked Acts of War. The news had reached Summer two weeks after father had been scheduled to return.

The remaining frames were the transcript of the brief court hearing, copies of the petitions for reimbursement and requests to seize or put in escrow assets of Middleton and Company. Then there was mother’s bankruptcy petition, filed to try and keep the house. Finally came the decision and the references and precedents for it, the Judge’s condemnation order for the house, but awarding contents to mother. A 60 day stay on the seizure of the home had been asked for and granted. My bank account had not been seized, but mothers had, as it was a joint account. However she was allowed household expenses of 500 credits per month for two months, so it didn’t really matter. I knew there had been less than 1,000 credits in it.

I knew my father’s test flight was important, and expensive. So expensive it couldn’t be put off. What I hadn’t known was the company owed several times the value of its total assets, including what father had paid for the Nancy. I had spent all last summer helping get the Nancy ready. The company, which in reality meant Father and Gustov, had been short of money and the modifications to the ship very expensive. It seemed father had redesigned much of the drive generator and every replacement part had to be custom made. Perhaps father was too much of a perfectionist like mother kept saying. A mortgage on the house had barely been enough to pay for supplies, equipment and fuel that the company could not purchase on credit.

William Jr. was a brilliant physicist but better with theory than hardware. He had started training me before I was six in math and to use and work on computers. I was better with hardware and software than he was. Without my help modifying and installing the new drive coils, power cells, controls and computer systems he could never have attempted the test that went so wrong.

Had it been something I had done, or not done, or done wrong? I had asked myself those questions over and over and over and never reached an answer. I still wondered.

Father’s calculations had predicted a twenty percent increase in field effectiveness. That would have cut travel times between planets at least in half and could in theory make possible near instantaneous communications between bases up to a light year apart. He made sure I could do the math but I really did not understand the theory.

My pay for last summer’s work had been the test boxes I built, to father’s design. They were marvelous, they allowed me to calibrate and balance the Nancy’s coils without their being fully energized, something impossible to do except in space. Even those boxes had been very expensive to make. I know he had borrowed money from his associates at the University.

I almost missed the notation at the end of the Judge’s decision.

William J. Middleton Jr. is officially declared missing as of 32 standard weeks after his date of departure and will be declared legally dead 5 standard years from that date unless evidence to the contrary is presented to this Court or to a Federal Court.

Legally dead! Tears rolled down my face.

Pushing the standby button to let incoming calls ring through I looked around through my tears at the only home I had known.

The living room was clean and neat but the furniture faded. The corners of the couch and chairs were worn, and despite repeated scrubbings a punch stain was faintly visible on the couch. The carpet was worn where traffic detoured around the end of the couch and at the doorways. The walls were clean but should be painted. The curtains had runs, skillfully repaired, where fluffy my cat had climbed them five or six years ago.

It was a comfortable home where guests felt welcome.

I had been expecting the condemnation order but tears still rolled down my face.

Mother will be crushed.

The company’s creditors started getting noisy even before Father left. If it hadn’t been for the problems with the frontier planets, The Combine, turning into full scale war, we would have been kicked out weeks ago.

Mother took it hard, especially the declaration that her husband was officially missing. She cried a lot, but after two weeks she called Anne, her sister, and was invited to live with her and help out in her beauty shop.

Four weeks later, it was my high school graduation. I had been notified that I had earned three scholarships. However, after hugs and more tears, I was able to convince mother to sign my enlistment authorization.

If I had worked part time there would have been enough money, with the scholarships, for me to attend college; if I had a place to live.

I had gone back and forth over it carefully with mother, several times. Aunt Anne didn’t have room for or want a teenager or his computers. She also didn’t live in a city with a University. The military would pay me while it trained me. From that pay I could save enough to pay for storage on the good furniture and Father’s personal papers and my special gear.

I had already gone through Father’s papers , organized and catalogued them. When the good stuff was in storage we would sell what was left, which meant almost everything in the house, get what we could for it, even if we had to almost give it away. With what was in storage paid up for at least six months, I would enlist and mother would go live with Aunt Anne.

Losing her home was hard on mother. She loved it. Her wonderful, if somewhat impractical husband had built some of the things here himself. He had turned dead space into extra closet space, rebuilt the kitchen cupboards adding lazy susans in the corners and she loved its wonderful view of the mountains. It was the only home she had known as bride and mother. She wanted to stay no matter what. Losing her son to the military after losing her husband to space was worse. But looming large was the draft. If I wasn’t attending a University I would be drafted as soon as I turned 18.

After mother signed the forms she hugged me again and went to her room.

I went to my room and sat down at my computer.

I knew it was selfish but I was happy she had signed the papers, that a course of action had been decided on.

I rested my fingers on the keyboard and glanced at the case. I had built it myself, case and all, and won a prize for the best home-built machine in my senior class. I had figured I would get enough for it to pay expenses for several months. If we had been allowed to keep the house.

I typed the commands. I could have used voice commands of course, but my throat was tight and I was afraid my voice might squeak.

The program had already been written and tested and I only had to call it up and hit RUN to insert the ads for the moving sale and on the auction sites for my computers, software and test gear I was selling. The computer would handle all calls and do any bargaining to sell everything not going into storage. It would even sell itself. Pictures of everything and specifications for it were in its memory and it had an AI rating of 5.6, equal to any artificial intelligence device currently on the market.

I would keep my pocket computer, and some small tools. What I couldn’t sell I would give to friends or donate to the computer lab at school.

I checked the command and hit RUN. The messages were sent and the computer went to listen mode, ready to answer every query, show pictures, answer questions, send message descriptions and accept and credit my bank account for any electronic purchases.

I was rather looking forward to enlisting. I had convinced mother to sign the form by showing her research that historically, less than 6 percent of enlisted personnel experienced combat. I had also emphasized the technical training I would get. It would be super to work on the top-secret space service computers. The most telling argument though, had been the Draft, just signed into law. In a year, when I turned 18, I would be drafted and probably end up in the marines, they gave volunteers more choice, so they said.

Middleton W III said the paper stuck to my bare chest. I stood, my feet in oversized sandals. The only other thing I wore were goose bumps. One in a seemingly endless line of similarly unclad male recruits. We had celebrated my 17th birthday last night.

The gang was all there together, probably for the last time, maybe forever. Mother cried a little and hugged me. Two of my friends, Alan and Jesus, would be sleeping over and going with me in the morning to the induction center. Everyone had been subdued at first. The soft drinks had come out of the fridge; we hadn’t been allowed to sell that or the stove. Then the pizzas had started coming out of the oven, the boom box had been turned up, Mother had started a game of Guess, only she called it Charades, and things had started to lighten up.

Later we sat around the edge of the pit, the sunken section of the living room and watched the logs crackle in the fireplace. We told ghost stories and roasted marshmallows and sang. Mother had a marvelous voice and knew all the old songs and most of the new ones. She made the party. I remembered father saying that she had given up a singing career to marry him.

By the time the rest of the gang left most of the chips, dips, drinks, pizzas, marshmallows and ice cream had disappeared. It had been fun and there had been a dozen handhelds busy recording to keep the memories alive.

We slept on disposable air mattresses on the carpet. Mine went flat twice, which wasn’t that bad because I added logs to the fire each time to keep the chill out. The gas and electric meters had turned themselves off at midnight. We woke early, gathered our things by flashlight, ate and took a taxi downtown. We put Mother and the guard geese on the bus, then walked six blocks carrying our ‘one small bag clearly marked with name and address’ to the recruiting center.

I shuffled forward and had more blood drawn. From a finger on my left hand this time and received another injection in my already well punctured rear.

‘Thank the Lord that they no longer used hypodermics’ was what I tried to think but shots still stung and then itched for about an hour.

I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms and envied the recruit in front of me, who had some body fat to keep him warm.

I was separated, alphabetically, from my friends when we reported to the center and I hadn’t seen either since. I knew my usual 62 kilos was only just the lower weight limit for recruits so I had eaten all I could hold the night before and had saved enough pizza and ice cream for a hearty breakfast for all. I had also drunk half a two-liter bottle of pop someone had left the lid off. A good thing I had, though it had been a relief to provide a urine sample mid-morning. As I had expected the room temperature was set for the convenience of the busy, fully dressed medical staff, not the many more numerous, goose bumped, shivering recruits.

Then I was at the back of the room. Ten minutes on treadmill breathing into a tube warmed me up some. Then it was down a long cold hall at centimeter crawl as someone had named our slow shuffling progress.

At the end of the hall an optical reader scanned the bar code taped to my bare arm exactly 140 cm. from the floor. A screen flashed my name and an arrow directed me to the clothing issue rooms.

I passed my medical!

Chapter 2

A Recruit and a Mentor

Lucky I like short hair, I thought again as I rubbed at the stubble of my standard recruit haircut. My stomach rumbled and I struggled with the question in the test booklet. It was the last of the four straight days of tests, twelve hours a day. This test though, was not time limited; instead the instructions said Stop when you encounter the third question you are unable to answer.

Looking around I saw there were only a few others still working. All the rest, over 400 recruits, had left and were at dinner.

I read the problem yet again. This time rephrasing it, substituting simpler words for the long ones I had figured out the meaning of and the question suddenly became trivial.

It’s a vocabulary test!

I wrote down the answer, being careful not to use any of the big words in the question and went on to the next. It was trivial too, for me. It was a rather complex computer question, but easy as I automatically built the block diagram in my head and worked the numbers on the calculator built into the desk. The hardest part was getting the conversion factors correct. It was the ninth time I had used the calculator while working 34 questions.

Finally, the last question. Given 12 steel balls of equal size and appearance, one of which is lighter or heavier than the others, and an equal arm balance that can be used three times only, identify the nonconforming element. Thinking of Mr. Yanuck my high school math and calculus teacher, I diagramed out the possible variations and after a false start sorted them correctly, wrote an explanation of what I had done and closed the test book. I had left 2 questions unanswered, one on biology and one on anthropology. I stood up, stretched, and walked down the isle of the now empty test hall and handed the book to the test monitor. The monitor was impatient and annoyed. He had missed his supper too.

I could tell what he was thinking without a word being spoken.

There is always one idiot in every group that spends an hour trying to answer one last question that he hasn’t a clue how to answer.

The monitor took the booklet, indicated I should insert the ID tag hanging around my neck into the slot located neck high so that the computer could imprint the time, my name and ID code on each page of the booklet and the results of the test into the tag’s memory. After checking the picture ID hanging from my pocket against the coded strip stuck on the test booklet by each student, the monitor removed the binding and began running the pages through the scanner. Page followed page, the monitor impatiently looking for unanswered questions. With growing surprise he came to the last few pages. He glanced at the answers, often just a few words or a couple of numbers. Finally, the last page was scanned.

The computer buzzed to indicate it had printed this additional test information into the terabyte of ram in the card. The card was released, and the monitor dismissed me. I headed for the mess, hoping it was still open.

The monitor checked to see what this skinny teenager’s score was, whistled softly and reached for the phone. The Commander in charge of recruit training would want to hear about this one.

At the mess hall the meal line had closed but the side tables still had food on them. There were carrot sticks, celery sticks, canned fruit, toast, peanut butter and jam. It took two helpings to fill up. As I was grabbing my second helping they began clearing the tables. Full and exhausted, I returned to my dorm. No, it was called a hall and the building a barracks. I shared the hall with ninety-seven other recruits. I was the youngest. The oldest was 40 something, older than father, a specialist of some kind with greying hair.

A group was seated next to my bunk, talking about the exam, comparing the number of pages they had completed.

Lying quietly on my bunk, the topmost in a stack of three, I listened to the talk. The test book had 29 pages, 39 questions and the average number of pages completed seemed to be 14 or 15. Several of the recruits had read through the rest of the questions after they had missed their three and soon an argument started as to the meaning of the question I thought of as the vocabulary question. One of the recruits obviously had a photographic memory for he quoted it word perfect. Someone else wrote it out, getting help with the spelling of several words, and it was passed around. The guesses were wild and gave everyone a laugh, a rare commodity so far in our military careers. Finally the topic changed to girlfriends and such, and the crowd eventually drifted off.

I got off my bunk and made my way to the head, bathroom to civilians. I picked up the paper and quickly wrote simpler words of equivalent meaning above some of the less familiar ones.

I tacked it to the bulletin board.

By the time I had showered and taken my weekly shave the paper had been discovered. I went to sleep to an argument over whether the changes were correct and, if they were, who had figured it out.

The next day was interview day. By reveille the lists had been posted.

The building where one’s interview would be held provided a clue to where each recruit was headed.

Appointments at the marine barracks were the most obvious, and the interviews probably the shortest, but drawing on the experiences of friends, fellow recruits or family who had been through this, it was generally possible to tell if one was headed for logistics, administration, crew, communications, or maintenance.

I was directed back to the Test Hall.

I went, wondering what was up, hadn’t I done good enough on the tests?

I reported right after breakfast and was directed to a small cold lecture room where a dozen other recruits sat. After a long chilly wait an officer with three gold stripes on the sleeves of his uniform jacket and thick glasses arrived and introduced himself as Commander KinCaid, Base Training Coordinator.

He read from his list.

Beatty, Osborne and Yee. Due to the marks you received, you three may within the next 24 hours opt for Officer candidate school – OCS, or take your pick of service branch.

He gave each of them a fat envelope out of his zipper case and they left whispering among themselves.

He then pulled out another envelope and read off nine names. You nine have failed to meet certain test standards. You may however, if you think you are tough enough, join the Marines. Otherwise you may resign, your records will be marked INSUFFICIENT SKILLS and you will be discharged and returned to civilian life.

There was a long pause. Then six of the nine volunteered for the marines.

Captain KinCaid handed out slips of gold paper to the six volunteers, orange slips to those returning to civilian life, wished them luck and only I was left.

He didn’t have any more envelopes, but plenty of orange slips.

I swallowed convulsively and my heart was racing. What would I tell mother?

Then he smiled at me and said.

Relax, these slips aren’t for you. And he put them back in a pocket of the open zipper case.

I sat up straighter as Commander KinCaid moved and sat down opposite me and looked me in the eye.

Middleton, your marks also qualified you for OCS, however, regulations state that recruits to OCS must be between ages 18 and 35. You’re 17, what do you want to do?

I would like to work on computers. Then I remembered and added Sir.

Hmmm. Well I can enroll you in tech training, but I suspect you know more than most of the teachers. Did you have a service branch in mind?

Yes Sir. I said eagerly The S series and the new R model computers.

S and R?

Yes Sir!

Space Service.

Yes Sir!

Hmmm.

Commander KinCaid studied me drumming his fingers. I wondered what he thought. I was skinny, I wasn’t sure how I had done on the tests but I thought I had done Ok.

Commander KinCaid’s thoughts were rather more qualitative. An eager youth, a near genius from his marks. From his self-history he’s been building and working with computers for years. Earnest and intelligent and knowing about those particular computers is evidence of extreme interest and study.

KinCaid himself knew almost nothing about advanced computers except where they were being built. But he knew young men. It would be a waste to make this young man slog through the courses that he would have to, to qualify for the upper-level school he needed to realize his goal. A worthy goal and definitely possible from his scores.

KinCaid remembered his father telling him when he entered the Academy twenty years before, there are enough regulations to allow a good officer to do almost anything he really should do, if he knows them well enough, and he knew them well, he taught three levels of classes on them.

William, Commander KinCaid explained The military in its wisdom has decreed that every recruit must go through Hell Month where they see just how much a recruit can take. It is an exercise to convince the recruit he can function on two hours sleep, survive constant work and verbal abuse and learn to do what he is told instantly and without question. It’s called instilling discipline and respect for the command structure. Those that can’t take it are mostly returned to civilian life with a black mark on their record.

It really isn’t that hard, just repeat to yourself over and over. ‘The first time I was born it was a lot harder on me and on my mother’.

When you get back from hell month report to my office. I will arrange for you to draw texts for the lower-level courses. When you feel ready for an exam, talk to the senior Monitor in the test hall. He will supply the proper exam papers, administer the exam and mark it. After the exam see my secretary. She will arrange for practical testing and technical grade certification tests. As soon as you fail an exam that is the class you join. You will of course have to take the regular Military Conduct and Military History classes and PT.

Young and inexperienced as I was, I realized that I had met an exceptional officer who was taking a personal interest in me, and I wanted to live up to what he obviously expected me to do.

He shook my hand and I said.

Thank you, Sir.

I spent a very long month on the dry upper plains, always it seemed, struggling to breath, to put one foot in front of the other, to complete one task only to be told to run or climb or crawl to the next. A tough month that saw twenty percent of all recruits wash out or quit. A month during which three times I only stuck it out because of Commander KinCaid’s advice and trust in me.

When I returned to the school, I spent a night in a 40-man hall in the recruit barracks, then I was assigned to a 4-man room in the Transient Barracks. There, by repairing a watch, a radio, the intercom and other varied electrical hardware and solving some software glitches, and staying on call to trouble shoot the terminal in the housing office, it became an unspoken rule that my room filled up last, so I only occasionally had transient roommates.

I studied undisturbed most of the time, my only companion a rock turtle, a shy, slow moving, nocturnal creature I had found just outside the base entrance.

The gate NCO had been ready to put me on report for leaving base without a pass when I darted through the gate, then walked slowly back and showed him the turtle with its cracked shell. It had probably been run over by a vehicle entering or leaving the gate. His son had a pet that had been run over and he shooed me onto base and told me to ask next time. Epoxy from the post exchange and carbon fiber tape from a packing crate for reinforcement was enough to rehabilitate the creature. I named it Splitstone and kept it on my desk. Splitstone made a great paper weight while the light was on, but would move around at night and nibble anything containing salt. It ate insects it caught with its long quick tongue but since insects were scarce indoors, it ate the shredded raw potatoes I scrounged and shredded jerky again from the PX. Rock turtles were simple to keep as they never fell off a table, never going over any drop that they could not feel the bottom of.

I attended a few classes to get the feel of the courses Commander Kinkaid assigned me and in 3 months had passed, with good marks, the equivalent of 5 three-month blocks of computer courses. By 6 months I had passed off another 3 half year course blocks, and by a little over 10 months, almost a month before my 18th birthday, I finally qualified for the S and R course. Along the way I had also studied and passed nine other courses including basic, intermediate and advanced Military History, basic intermediate and advanced, Military Regulations for the Enlisted Man, and basic, intermediate and advanced classes on weapons systems - space. Oh, and a three-month medical training class that covered first aid, and the basics of space medicine. The text included stuff on the dangers of weightlessness including bone loss, space sickness and some other scary health issues. The exam barely touched on that part but I read it all carefully, figuring I could be spending a lot of time in space.

I visited Commander KinCaid’’s office regularly. I enjoyed talking with him. Some of the questions I asked him sounded lame or dumb, even to me, but I had no one else to ask. He always made sure he understood the question and answered completely. Sometimes adding a few words of advice or telling me what to expect and why. I really appreciated the why part of the answers. He was obviously keeping a close eye on what some were calling his protégé. There was I realized, near the end, a respect and liking between us. Commander KinCaid even arranged for me to pass off the required physical, weapons, and other recruit training and testing without leaving his jurisdiction at the school. Then after I passed off the last set of classes he gave me a two-week furlough to visit Mother. I left Splitstone with her. Then it was time for me, Private Middleton, technician grade 12, to leave for my new school.

The order came to report to Commander KinCaid’s office. I arrived early and was ushered in. I had been to his office at last weekly since returning from Hell Month, even when I was taking the courses on regulations that he taught and that he ordered me to test